Crafty Moms Share

All About Japan By Willamarie Moore -- Book Review

Disclosure: Tuttle Publishing gave me a copy of these products free of charge. All opinions in my review are my own and I did not receive any other compensation. As in all my reviews I am providing links for your ease, but receive no compensation.

Today I am going to review for you the wonderful book, All About Japan by Willamarie Moore. I absolutely love this series of books from Tuttle Publishing. They are packed full with so much information and they teach so much about the culture and life in the country. (I reviewed All About Indonesia by Linda Hibbs in July.) This book helps us center our exploration of Japan. It shares traditional stories, holidays, life in the city as well as the country (told by children who live there), recipes, crafts, dance, music, poetry, and so much more.

With any book that has a recipe or craft in it, Hazel wants to try it, so we did. The book has three recipes in it and we tried two. I did not try to make Onigiri since I couldn't find the ingredients and I didn't really think Hazel would like them. We did try Okonomiyaki. It is described like a pancake with fillings but reminded me more of an omelet. I do not think I cut our fillings up enough and they fell apart on us when we flipped and removed them. Steve and I both thought they were all right and Hazel liked to eat the chicken filling instead. The pancake batter had cabbage in it which is why they are green.

Oknomiyaki

The other recipe we tried was mochi cakes. We made them the day after we read "The Grateful Statues" in Japanese Children's Favorite Stories by Florence Sakade. The story is about a kind, poor couple. The old man does something kind for some statues and his kindness is rewarded with a large mochi cake. Therefore making mochi cake right afterward was perfect. Now are mochi cakes did not turn out pretty. We should have looked at pictures of them first, but Hazel was having fun making shapes out of them. We also could not find sweet rice flour or mochiko and used regular rice flour. They were not as sweet as they probably should have been. I like them though.

Mochi is often a treat for O-Shogatsu (New Year), so it seems appropriate to also show you our Nenga-jo Greeting card. Since 2015 is the year of the sheep, we used a sheep rubber stamp and Hazel wrote on the numbers. Nenga-jo are usually postcards that are sent the first three days of January.

Nenga-jo

This book also discusses some history of Japan including the samurai warriors. They have instructions to make a samurai helmet out of newspaper. Hazel of course wanted one and then modeled it with a sword.

And what exploration of Japan would be complete without some origami? The book shares a wonderful song about frogs and gives the instructions to make an origami hopping frog.

Hazel loves making origami and wanted to make lots of frogs. You can find similar frog's instructions here.

She also loved that they could hop.

She made one of every color and then pulled out her zoo mat to put them in water. She then gathered more zoo animals to go with her frogs. I love crafts that lead to her creative play!

All About Japan is the perfect book for anyone who wants to learn more about Japan, its history, culture, etc. There are so many activities throughout it from learning about haikus to writing Kanji. We would have done more of the Kanji if we hadn't had the other books. The other activity we did do was trying the Bon Dance. I however did not get any pictures since I was doing it with Hazel. I am also almost done with a kimono for her doll. She picked a fabric that reminds me of sakura (cherry blossoms), so I'll wait until it is finished and share it with our cherry exploration! Stay tuned!!

For more books and activities to learn about Japan check out:

Also check out some of our other reviews of Tuttle Publishing Books:

Sorbet Floats--Summer Celebrations or Perfect Drinks for a Frozen Party

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We are in the middle of Labor Day weekend here in the United States. It is the unofficial end to summer. Hazel starts school this week and she is not happy about it. To celebrate summer, say an end or just for fun, we made some sorbet floats. Now this idea started when we were out to dinner with my parents at the Rock Harbor Grill. We looked at the dessert menu after dinner even though none of us could eat another bite and I saw a blueberry sorbet IBC cream soda float. I was tempted, but then noticed all desserts were $8 and figured we could make it cheaper at home. I bought a six pack of IBC cream soda and then searched for blueberry sorbet. I finally found some in one of those serve yourself frozen yogurt places. We bought a small cup of it and made the floats.

Now since this was a summer celebration we used our umbrella straws. I could totally see Olaf drinking this in his dream of summer. Since we did not have much sorbet, we only needed one bottle of soda for the two drinks. Hazel loved it! (Now she has yet to like any of the drinks with bubbles in it previously.)

I finally got her to take the straw out of her mouth and told her to smile to show she liked it, but the smile didn't quite happen.

Now one of the best things of these floats is it is made with sorbet which is dairy free so Hazel can have them without worry of the dairy issues! We had some raspberry sorbet in the freezer, so we tried that the next day. We put in a lot of sorbet the first time we made them and not quite as much so it could have a chance to melt. We talked about the sorbet being like frozen hearts from Disney's Frozen. So we decided this would be a fun punch to make for her Frozen party.

Hazel has been asking for these every night now. We are not quite as fancy as the first ones. Needless to say we love them.

My favorite is when the sorbet is really starting to melt and you can taste the fruit mixed well with the soda. So that is our summer celebration/Disney Frozen inspired drinks. Goodbye, summer!! We will miss you!!

For more Frozen inspired things check out:

Sharing Saturday 13-35

Have you entered my current giveaway yet?

Thank you to everyone who shared with us last week!! And a very special thank you to all the people who took the time to check out some of the amazing ideas shared!! With Hazel starting school next week, I am finally starting to think about back to school. Since we are one of the later schools to start I have seen lots of ideas on-line including at last week's party. Our features will be about back to school, fall, some favorites and we had a most clicked from Gift of Curiosity: Apple Printable Pack.

http://www.giftofcuriosity.com/apple-printable-pack/

Back To School Help

1) From Planet Smarty Pants: Questions for the New School Year

2) From Sunshine and Hurricanes: Armed and Ready to Make Lunch

3) From Krafts and Kiddos: Simple Ways to Make Back to School Easy

4) From Willamette Valley Wonder Woman: Back To School Free Printable Lunch Notes

Back To School Crafts

1) From Enchanted Homeschooling Mom: Back To School Wreath

2) From Stella123: Back To School Pinwheel Pencils

After School Snacks and Activity

1) From Schooling a Monkey: Healthy Snack Idea: Apple Chips Recipe

2) From There's Just One Mommy: 12 After School Snack Ideas

3) From Kandy Kreations: Fun Family Tradition with Cookie Friday

Some Art/Lesson Favorites

1) From Toddlers Through Preschool: Observing Trees

2) From An Idea on Tuesday: Painting Without a Brush

3) From Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds: Fall Watercolor Art

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.

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From Your Hostess: This week we continued our exploration of Japan with a look at the language, we reviewed the newest Octonauts DVD and are giving away a copy!, we made a doll checkers game for free, we made some Olaf mugs for party favors for Hazel's Frozen party, we learned about Saudi Arabia by cooking Al Kabsa for Around the World in 12 Dishes.

Now for This Week's Party

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Around the World in 12 Dishes: Al Kabsa - Traditional Saudi Rice and Chicken

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This month we are exploring Saudi Arabia. Since Hazel does not watch or hear news if we can help it, she does not know much about Saudi Arabia. There also was not much out there for her age on Saudi Arabia. We found a few picture books that were more on Islam. Since Islam's birthplace is in Saudi Arabia, I guess it is appropriate. I found a coloring page on Education.com.

For a bit more on Saudi Arabia, you can check out my post on the Around the World in 12 Dishes blog.

We found recipes on-line since none of the books we looked at had any. We decided to try Al Kabsa which is a traditional Saudi rice and chicken. We found the recipe on All Recipes. I have seen Hazel grow and develop in the kitchen over the past year. It is amazing to see what she can do now.

Al Kabsa adapted from All Recipes
Ingredients:
Kabsa Spice Mix:
1/2 teaspoon saffron
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried whole lime powder or lime zest (we could not find dried whole lime powder)

1/4 cup butter
1 onion finely chopped
6 cloves of garlic
3 pounds of bone-in chicken cut into 8 pieces
1/4 cup tomato puree

Hazel zesting the lime

1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 package shredded carrots
2 whole cloves
1 pinch ground nutmeg
1 pinch ground cumin
1 pinch ground corriander
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 1/4 cups hot water
1 chicken bouillon packet
2 1/4 cups unrinsed basmati rice (we used brown basmati rice and it took much longer!!)
1/4 cup of raisins
1/4 cup slivered almonds

Instructions:
1) Mix together the Kabsa Spice Mix in a small bowl and set aside.

Hazel adding tomato puree

2) Melt the butter in a large stock pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Stir in the garlic and onion. Cook and stir until the onion turns translucent, about 5 minutes.

3) Add the chicken, and brown them over medium high heat until lightly brown, about 10 minutes.

4) Mix in the tomato puree, canned tomatoes, carrots, and all spices (including mix from step 1). Cook for about 3 minutes.

Stirring Mixture

Adding Water & Bouillon

5) Pour in the water and chicken bouillon (we mixed them together first since we use a no salt packet and not a cube).

Waiting for it to boil

6) Bring sauce to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer and cover the pot. Simmer until the chicken is no longer pink, about 30 minutes.

7) Gently stir in the rice. Cover the pot and simmer until rice is tender and almost dry, about 25 minutes for white rice and 35 for brown.

Hazel Adding Rice

8) Add the raisins and more hot water if necessary (ours definitely did not need any more water). Cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until rice is dry.

9) Transfer the rice to a large serving platter and arrange chicken pieces on top. Sprinkle the slivered almonds over the dish. Enjoy!

I enjoyed it and Hazel liked the chicken but thought the rice was too spicy. Steve thought it was ok, but really didn't want it again.

For books we read:

Hajj Stories by Anita Ganeri which shares the story of the traditional Hajj, journey to Mecca for Muslims.
Ramadan Moon by Na'ima B. Robert and Shiria Adi which shares how Ramadan is determined by the moon and what Ramadan is.
We also have our Fairy Tales in Different Cultures from the past which include: The Golden Slipper, The Persian Cinderella, Cinderella: An Islamic Tale, Snow White: An Islamic Tale. We are looking forward to the Sleeping Beauty: An Islamic Tale coming out in February!!

That is our exploration of Saudi Arabia. Around the World in 12 Dishes is hosted by these lovely blogs:

Adventures In Mommydom, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, All Done Monkey, Crafty Moms Share, Glittering Muffins, Kid World Citizen, Mermaids' Makings, The Mommy Talks and The Usual Mayhem

I hope you will take the time to check them all out and check out everyone's great explorations of Saudi Arabia. If you have a Saudi dish or craft or lesson, please share it here as well!! The Saudi placemat and passport pages are coming soon for help with extra learning about the country.

DIY Doll Checkers Game & Clipboard

Make sure to enter my current giveaway!!

We needed to go to Home Depot to get air conditioner filters. We have a friend from church who works at Home Depot so Hazel and I always take Steve's list to him and he helps us find everything Steve needs so Steve doesn't have to deal with Home Depot on a weekend. Hazel also loves to go visit our friend. I remembered seeing this pin for a doll clipboard and mistakenly thought it was sample floor tile, so we got two of those while we were there. Now the floor samples are square and did not make the perfect clipboard (I may go back for the counter sample).

While driving home Hazel commented how the square tile would make a good checkers board. She had fallen in love with the one at the American Girl Doll Store that came with the Fun and Games Table for $58. We were able to make one for free! We got a wood floor sample from Home Depot and used a printed checker board (which I will provide as a download), Mod Podge glue, red and black foam sheets and a hole punch. You could also use a 4"x4" square of cardboard instead of the floor sample.

At first I made a typical black and white checker board, but Hazel wanted a red and black one, so I made another print out and covered the black and white one. For my printable, I offer both in case you have a preference or your doll does. All I did was cut the checkerboard out and use the Mod Podge glue to stick it to the wood sample and then put a thin coat of the glue over it. I used a glossy finish because it is what I had.

Now I was going to buy buttons to be the checkers, and I stopped at Joann Fabrics yesterday to see what they had for button sizes. I didn't buy any since I wanted to figure out the size of the squares first. Then last night I was trying to think about what else we could use for buttons and I was thinking of cutting them out of paper, but that would be too thin and I thought of foam. I went to our foam supply and got a regular hole punch (I was wishing I had a slightly bigger one) and punched twelve checkers from a red sheet and a black sheet. Sorry with the lighting the black ones are hard to see on the black squares.

Finally Hazel's dolls were ready to play a game. Hazel invited Mimi over for a game.

Hazel is getting ready to make the first move.

So instead of $58 to get a checkers game we made one for free! I thought about doing a box, but decided since the board cannot fold, not to bother.

For more DIY doll ideas check out: